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Armstrong's titles eventually go, said it has "no particular comment to make on this subject."
• Armstrong chose not to pursue the case and instead accepted the sanction, though he has consistently argued that the USADA system was rigged against him, calling the agency's effort a "witch hunt" that used special rules it doesn't follow in all its other cases.
• His attorney, Herman, was even more pointed in his criticism. He called it "a one-sided hatchet job -- a taxpayer funded tabloid piece rehashing old, disproved, unreliable allegations based largely on axe-grinders, serial perjurers, coerced testimony, sweetheart deals and threat-induced stories."
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Heating costs to rise this winter as cold returns
JONATHAN FAHEY,AP Energy Writer
• NEW YORK (AP) -- Americans will pay more to heat their homes this winter as they feel something they didn't feel much of last year: cold.
• Prices for natural gas, heating oil and other fuels will be relatively stable. But customers will have to use more energy to keep warm than they did a year ago, according to the annual Winter Fuels Outlook from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.
• Last winter was the warmest on record. This year temperatures are expected to be close to normal.
• Heating bills will rise 20 percent for heating oil customers, 15 percent for natural gas customers, 13 percent for propane customers and 5 percent for electricity customers, the EIA announced Wednesday.
• Heating oil customers are expected to pay an average of $3.80 per gallon, the highest price ever. That will result in record heating bills, at an average of $2,494. That's nearly $200 more than the previous high, set in the winter of 2010-2011.
• Kathleen Ryan of Cohoes, in upstate New York, is on a payment plan in which she is billed for oil November through May to spread out the costs. But with oil prices high and a hint of winter chill in the air, she is concerned.
• "You have no idea what Mother Nature is going to bring," she said. "They're already talking about frost this weekend. My costs could double."
• She regrets not switching over to natural gas earlier this year when sewer line work in her neighborhood would have made it easier to run a gas line to her home. But she has a plan to keep a lid on her heating bills. "I'm going to buy a portable (Continued on page 35)
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